To Live Again Sequel to The Ties that Bind
by weiss kittyn
Summary: Nagi is on a mission that nearly goes wrong, until he gets a little help from an unexpected source.


To Live Again

by weiss kittyn (on ffnet) or if you're reading this on or aff, i'm Yami Bakura. - the sequel to The Ties That Bind, both one shots, but slightly connected. I'm sure you could read one without the other, but reading both will give you the whole story here.

disclaimer: not mine. bite me.

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Several Years Later... (as in, after The Ties That Bind)

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Nagi crept into the building, his first mission as the new leader of Schwarz. He knew what was riding on this, and didn't want to disappoint Crawford. The elder man had grown weary of being known as 'the leader' and had passed the title onto the one he thought most worthy. Schuldig was a little miffed at first about having to take orders from someone so much younger than him, but when faced with Farfarello, Crawford, and Nagi himself, he relented.

Nagi sighed. These sorts of missions, the 'Weiss' missions as he privately called them, were so annoying. He hated doing manual labor, and was much happier in front of a computer. The act of killing was distasteful to him, though he wasn't sure when he'd started thinking that way. Most of his young life was devoted to hatred of the human race, and a fierce burning desire to eliminate them in retaliation for the suffering he'd been dealt. After he reached the age of eighteen, his 'burning desire for revenge' as Schuldig once called it, had died away to dim embers. Mostly now he just wanted to live and let live. It was hard to believe that he was only nineteen, and that only four short years ago he was the bane of humanity. Pausing to survey his surroundings, Nagi momentarily allowed his memories to spring to the fore. 

Days after his sixteenth birthday, after the initial surprise of having lived so long had died away, he rescued a member of Weiss from his own mission. Nagi shivered, remembering the feeling of blood on his hands. It wasn't even he who had spilled it that time. He watched the blonde rejoin his team from a nearby coffee shop, watched him be treated, and then, alone, walk out of the hospital, never to be seen again. 

Weiss gradually broke apart after that. Ken moved to England to study soccer, and maybe start again with a clean slate. Yohji moved to America to do god only knew what, and Ran and his sister stayed at the flower shop with Sakura. Aya and Sakura eventually married, after he let go of his guilt and hate, and Aya-chan was secretly dating someone Ran would kill if he found out about. That was how he knew so much about the Weiss' activities. Farfarello loved to talk about his girlfriend, and was very proud of his own release of the hate that kept him prison bound in his own life. Aya-chan seemed to be the only one there who could spend any time with the irishman, and it was showing in his behavior. 'Insane' was still his main descriptive adjective, but it was a calm insanity, and he smiled more. Schuldig, too, though he was still an ass, had let go of his past, and had revealed his real name, though he threatened them all with death if they ever used it. Christian. Nagi was fine calling him Schuldig. He'd been the Guilty One for nearly six years to the youth, and that was how he would be forever, whether he liked it or not. Crawford also loosened up, and he smiled more. Nagi was amazed at how much a smile did for a person. A twisted smirk, while suiting the two men fine, was not as pleasant as a true smile, something they gave out often nowadays. Still, Omi's disappearance those years ago troubled everyone, Crawford especially, though he would never share his reasons. Another thing weighing heavily on everyones mind was who the newest killer on the assassin scene was. He invaded without a sound, killed quickly and unmercifully, and was gone without a single trace. Forensic scientists from the world over examined his crime scenes, and not one could determine any clues about who they might have been. He sometimes left a single token behind, a dart with a black cat on the feather-end. This calling card had earned him the name YamiNeko, or simply Dark Cat. He was silent and deadly as a cat, and his tokens were black cats, so it all made sense once one sat down to think about it. Nagi realized he'd been spending too much time reminiscing, and shook himself to focus on the mission at hand.

He was to get into the house, which he had done so easily, find and kill a man, and anyone who got in his way, and leave again. The challenge was in that he had to kill them without leaving a mark - use his powers. 

After almost an hour of searching, and not finding a single living being in the house, he nearly gave up. The house was a maze, and the man he was looking for could have been in any of the rooms. He was about to turn around and call it all off, when suddenly a whisper came from somewhere up ahead. At first, he wasn't sure he'd heard it correctly, and walked forwared a few steps with the hopes of hearing it again.

Nothing.

Attributing it to exhaustion and over working himself, he nearly turned again, when it came again, louder, clearer.

'follow me!'

Curious, he moved in the direction he'd heard it coming from.

'yes! this way!'

The voice led him through hallway after hallway, rooms upon rooms and twists, corridors, up and down stairs, until he was so lost he couldn't have gotten out if he wanted to. 

'in there.' 

A door swung open, and, cautiously, Nagi stepped inside. The man he was looking for lay sleeping on a couch, clearly having fallen asleep while working on something. Nagi concentrated his powers in the mans chest, his heart exploding instantly. Nothing was visible outwardly, and he hadn't made a sound as he died. Satisfied, Nagi turned to leave, when a group of men surrounded him.

"I had a feeling Kiyamano would do something like this," said a familiar voice. It was the voice of the man who was supposed to be dead. Kiyamano was Nagi's - and therefore the rest of Schwarz's - current employer. He'd sent Nagi out to take care of his rival, who, obviously, had been expecting him to do so. With fifteen or twenty guns all trained on him, Nagi knew that even as powerful as he was, he would die as soon as he made any sort of move, and he stood silently, watching.

"Maybe I should send you back to Kiyamono in a small box. Cut you up into little pieces as a token of my appreciation." 

Suddenly, Nagi knew how Omi had felt all those years ago, wounded and trapped... dying. He knew he would die there, and, just as calmly as the thought came to him, he accepted it, much as he had witnessed Omi do so long ago. /I'm going to die/ he thought, sighing when he didn't feel fear. Just... acceptance.

Without warning, the men surrounding him started dropping, dead before they hit the ground. Nagi was as surprised as the rest of them. Luckily, Marano was too surprised by the attack to blame Nagi for it. 

A shadowy figure dropped to the ground beside the bewildered man, and snatched the gun, turning it on him. 

"Okay," an amused voice said from the darkness. "Now you can kill him." Nagi recognized the voice; it was the one who led him through the house to this room. Disguising his surprise as indifference, he follows through with the original plan, and the mans heart exploded within his chest, and he dropped to the ground with an anguished groan as his life was extinguished.

The figure who'd helped him two times before now led Nagi back through the labyrinthine mansion. Somehow, he stayed so completely in shadows that Nagi was never able to get a clear look at him.

Outside, night had fallen. By the light of a street lamp, Omi bowed to him.

"I couldn't let you die," he said softly, bringing Nagi's words back to him. After handing Nagi an envelope, he vanished into the night like he'd never been there, leaving only the envelope as proof he'd existed at all. Nagi opened it gently, and took out a letter.

-Nagi-kun,

-I saved your life to repay you for saving mine. Thank you for that, by the way. I never did thank you for what you did. I now consider my debt to you repaid. If you do not mind being friends with an assassin such as myself... email me. sincerely,

-Omi

-"Dark Cat"

Nagi was amused by the pawprint that accompanied the signature, but it faded as he realized that the assassin that had been baffling authorities the world over, and nearly had Crawford tearing his hair out trying to figure out who it was...

Had been Omi. The whole time.

For the first time in his life, a true, broad smile crossed his face, and the last vestiges of guilt, anger, vengeance withered away in the force of his newfound life, with new friends and old enemies in a single person.

-ende-

i loathe the ending... grr. well, Omi and Nagi go on to lead full, happy lives together, move to san francisco, and get married, adopt two children from Iran, and live out their days in marital bliss.

Ya. right. sorry, don't know where that came from. i need sleep. hope you enjoyed this.. randomness... please review!


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